1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display apparatus and a sorting method, and particularly to an image display apparatus having a date sorting display function and a sorting method for making the date sorting.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic cameras having an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) for displaying an image obtained by photographing a subject are widely used.
Also, an image player in which images obtained by photographing subjects using an electronic camera are stored in a storage device of large capacity, and a desired image is later displayed has been provided.
By the way, an image file of Exif (Exchangeable image file) format has widely spread. Thereby, the image file can be easily exchanged between the devices of different types (e.g., between electronic camera and personal computer, between electronic camera and printer, or between electronic camera and image player). In the image file of Exif format, the photographing date and time information is contained in the additional information called a tag added to the image.
To facilitate an operation of retrieving and reading a desired file from a number of stored files, a list of file names is displayed by sorting the files in the order of date, as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-258957 (particularly FIG. 10).